526 



THE HEATH FAMILY. 



2. Blue Menziesia. Menziesia caerulea, Sm. (Fig. G28.) 



(Eng. Bot. t. 2469.) 



A small, much-branched shrub. Leaves 

 evergreen, crowded, linear, green on 

 both sides, and bordered with minute, 

 glandular teeth, scarcely visible without 

 a magnifying- glass. Flowers of a pur- 

 plish blue, on long pedicels, clustered 

 three or four together, in very short 

 terminal racemes or umbels. Corolla 

 4 or 5 lines long, with 5 very short 

 lobes. Stamens 10. Capsule 5-celled. 



On mountain heaths, in northern and 

 Arctic Europe, Asia and America, and in 

 the Pyrenees. In Britain only on the 

 mountain called the Sow of Athol, in 

 Perthshire, where it is becoming exceed- 

 ingly rare, if not already extinct. Fl. 

 summer. 



VII. HEATH. EEICA. 



Much branched shrubs, usually low, but in some species attaining 8 

 or 10 feet, with small, entire leaves, usually in whorls of 3 or 4, but 

 sometimes opposite or scattered, and almost always rolled back on 

 their edges. Flowers either axillary or in short terminal racemes or 

 clusters, mostly drooping. Sepals 4. Corolla ovoid, globular, or cam- 

 panulate (in some exotic species tubular), more or less 4-lobed, and 

 persisting round the capsule till its maturity. Stamens 8. Capsule 

 free, with 4 cells, opening in as many or twice as many valves, each 

 cell with several seeds. 



A genus of about 400 genuine species, besides the innumerable 

 hybrids and varieties raised in our gardens. Its geographical range is 

 eminently Atlantic. The greater number of species come from south- 

 western Africa, where they extend but very little way to the eastward. 

 In Europe also Heaths are strictly western, with the exception of two 

 or three species extending a considerable way eastward along the 

 sandy wastes of northern Europe, or round the Mediterranean to the 

 frontiers of Asia. The genus is otherwise unknown in Asia, America 

 or Australia. 



